Although the U.S. Constitution provides the right to a public trial, the Colorado Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled that the after-hours closure of a courthouse while a jury trial was occurring did not violate the defendant’s constitutional rights.

The U.S. Supreme Court has laid out specific criteria for judges to consider when closing their courtrooms to some or all members of the public during trials. But the murder case of Michael Jones in La Plata County raised the question of what happens when the entire courthouse is closed, unrelated to a judge’s order.

During the second evening of Jones’s 2018 trial, when jury selection was ongoing, a deputy told people to be cautious if they wanted to leave the building, because the doors had locked at 5 p.m. From 5 until 5:15, the defense was in the process of questioning jurors, meaning there had been a 15-minute period in which the public was shut out of the courthouse.

La Plata County District Court Judge William L. Herringer promptly warned the deputy he needed to have the doors unlocked “because I will shut a trial down before I continue with a trial having the public locked out of the courthouse. It’s just something we cannot have.”

The defense asked for a mistrial declaration, and Herringer ultimately denied the request. The judge pointed out he had no role in the closure, the doors to the courtroom itself were still open, the proceedings had only lasted a quarter of an hour with the lockout, and there was no evidence anyone had tried to enter the courthouse to view the trial. Herringer had a “high degree of confidence” the courthouse closure had not violated Jones’s public trial right.

In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court determined the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a “speedy and public trial” applies to states, with Justice Hugo Black writing how the “knowledge that every criminal trial is subject to contemporaneous review in the forum of public opinion is an effective restraint on possible abuse of judicial power.”

Because there may be legitimate reasons for excluding the public from courtroom proceedings, a majority of the state Supreme Court last year adopted a standard for determining whether a courtroom closure was “trivial,” or whether it implicated the protections the public trial right is meant to ensure. The goals of holding public trial include ensuring a fair process, reminding the judge and prosecutors of their duty to the defendant, encouraging witnesses to come forward and discouraging perjury. 

Applying the standard, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeals concluded the lockout affected none of those elements. Notably, there was no witness testimony during the closure, and neither the prosecution nor the judge was aware of the locked doors, meaning their behavior would not have changed during those 15 minutes.

“Because of the brief duration of the closure, coupled with its inadvertent and incomplete nature, we are satisfied that it did not affect the fairness of Jones’s trial,” wrote Judge Lino S. Lipinsky de Orlov in the panel’s opinion, which went unpublished and is not intended to set a precedent.

The case is People v. Jones.